


Mall Man

by DaveServo



Category: Science Fiction - Fandom, cyberpunk - Fandom
Genre: Body Modification, Chopping Mall, Crystals, Cyberpunk, Dystopia, Future, Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Humor, Insanity, Retail, Satire, Science Fiction, Shopping Malls, Weird, dispair, mall, retail hell, uncomfortable
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 17:48:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29336316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaveServo/pseuds/DaveServo
Summary: In a dystopian future, retail worker Sart avoids lethal hazards and aggressive customers in the THE MALL- a massive, subterranean shopping complex full of dead stores, possibly cannibalistic cleaning crews and whatever other horrors the fast-paced life of a retail worker brings.





	1. Welcome to the Geode-Drome

Sart stared at his customer as they explained the healing powers that were inherent to the large chunk of rose quartz crystal that they were excitedly running their fingers over. Their look of deep concentration and serious expression seemed at odds to the random patterns that that fingers drew across the chaotic surface of the specimen. It was definitely one of the better examples of the mineral in the store. That was why they only ever unboxed one of them at a time. The intricate shapes formed by the crystalline structure seemed to loose something when they were seen to repeat across the surface of ten or twenty identical specimens. There was a mechanical beauty to it that Sart was quite fond of. The store manager disagreed, and he was probably right. Not that Sart was actually paying attention to anything that this woman was saying.

His eyes wandered over to the new sales associate Asper. Her name tag sticker was attached below her left collar bone and was written in the same puke green color that she'd dyed her hair. She'd agreed to take her hair down out of the towering mohawk that she'd previously kept it in after accidentally knocked over an entire shelf of merchandise with it. Her hair, as green as ever, was now pulled into a tight ponytail that sprouted stiffly from the back of her otherwise shaven scalp. Her name had to be written on a sticker adhered to her chest, because ever since the company relaxed the dress code, Asper refused to wear a top of any kind. Living in the city, Sart was accustomed to seeing people of all ages and builds and presentations going about topless, but there was something a little distracting about seeing it in the workplace. His customer was still going on about the healing magics of the crystals and the ways that they interacted with human auras. Sart managed a very convincing "Absolutely" and informed them that with the membership they can earn points toward a discount on select items and special offers by text, email of bioware. There was a special this month, he told them. His voice trailed off. Asper was absentmindedly scratching under her left breast. Her eyes were fixed forward, staring at nothing.

"What?!" the customer asked impatiently.

Sart blinked few times and looked back at then. "Sorry, what?"

"What's the special?"

"Oh. It's on all volcanic rocks and fossils. If you have the membership."

The customer clicked their long nail on the quartz. "Does this count for the sale?"

"No." Sart was about to explain again, but he trailed off. Asper was now doing a little hopping in place dance. The thick silver barbells in her nipples glinted in the light as she waved them around. He looked back to see his customer staring at him frowning.

"And why not?" They demanded.

"It's not on the sale. It's only for volcanic rocks or fossils. We have some nice trilobites. They're on the sale?" Sart indicated the trilobite case with a resigned slouch.

"What good are you?!" Hissed the customer. "You can go fuck yourself. I can get all of this shit offline."

As they waddled out, Asper drifted over to the counter. She was scratching under both breasts now. Yawning.

"What was their vaj-sand?"

"They wanted to get the sale on quartz."

"You couldn't just give it to them?" Said Asper, now looking at her phone.

"It's not on quartz. Anyway, what do I care?" Said Sart as he retreated behind the counter.

"Oh yea. Nah. Yer totally right." Said Asper into her phone. "They're closing this place anyway."

With a sudden and renewed alertness, Sart came back around the counter. As he opened his mouth he was momentarily taken off guard by the sight of writhing, naked flesh on Asper's phone. It wasn't the first time that Sart had seen porn used for a motion wallpaper plenty of times, and it was really no different than the motion posters he passed on his way to work. Again it was all about the context. At least she'd deactivated the audio. The little moaning and grunting alert sounds were really annoying.

Sart recovered himself and asked his question. "What do you mean they're closing this place? Who told you that?"

"Zel told me, duh. He didn't tell you ohmygodthatissofunny!" Asper giggled and pointed her phone at Sart. The incoming message hovered above the writing bodies on the wallpaper. It contained a picture of a woman spreading her legs to reveal her vagina. Her labia were swollen red and studded with metallic teeth. A pair of fingers, covered in silver rings, spread the lips for full effect. Sart's face visibly fell.

"Ohmygodright?!" Asper giggled and started responding to the message. "Sarah was talking about doing this, but we all thought she was full of crab, but now look at it! It's so fucking cute!"

Asper continued texting behind the counter as Sart took a breath and greeted a customer who had been waiting patiently to be noticed. The customer, a masc of indeterminate age and poor hygene, wanted to know if he could use the restroom. Sart informed them that he was sorry, but they didn't have one. The mall's restroom's are right down the hall. The customer shoved both hands down the front of their pants and left.

Sart stood at the counter for a few minutes and stared out into the Mall. He looked at the people as they walked by. A masc had his entire body tattooed in a pattern that Sart couldn't make out. From this distance he thought that it made him look like his skin was falling off. A fem paused in front of the store with her small child. The child looked like they might be about five years old. The kid had some sort of implant under the skin of their forehead that stuck out like a large, square box. They said something to their mother and they slapped the child across the face hard enough that Sart could clearly hear it over the mash of musics in the mall and his store. He could usually hear both at once. Once the Mall and his store played the same song at the same time, but slightly out of sync. It was disorienting but strangely hypnotic and made it almost impossible to deal with the woman who was, at that moment, loudly accusing him of... something. He really didn't remember. Customers were always accusing him of something. Sart turned away from the Mall to see Asper sitting on the floor behind the counter with her pants around her ankles (or as close to her ankles as her calf-height boots would allow) taking pictures of her vagina with her phone. He didn't even want to think about how dirty that floor was. Sart sighed and started packing up the displays for the evening. He didn't think that they were very likely to see any more action that evening, and he really wanted to get out of there quickly. He'd ask Zel, the store manager about what Asper had said tomorrow.

Sart closed up and let the other employees out as he locked up. Asper and Gild, who had been working in the back room, only to emerge after close, Walked wordlessly behind them for a few store-lengths until they all found their own exits and went where ever it was that they went at night . Asper was no doubt meeting up with friends, or clients or victims, or whatever the hell it was she did at night. Tomorrow she would return, wearing what little clothing she could bear to put on to remind Sart of exactly how long it had been since he had had anything that could legally be called sex. Like Sart, Gild was probably going straight home. Sart noted that he was being atypically quiet. He used to try to engage Sart in conversation on their way through the Mall, but lately he had taken to hanging back and trying to talk to Asper. She would nod and make perfunctory noises of agreement as she texted or watched something on her phone. For a while, this gave Gild the idea that she was receptive to his attention, but after that illusion faded, he just started walking behind her and trying to look like he wasn't staring at her ass. Sart sympathized. He sneaked more looks at Asper's ass than he'd care to admit. But at least he knew he shouldn't be doing it, thought Sart. It was still rude to stare, after all. Even if outdated ideas of “public modesty” had gone out the window with dial-up, it was still on guys like Sart to not act like creeps. At least he thought so. It was only now that corporate workplaces like the Geode-Drome were relaxing their dress codes to accommodate the younger staffers who wanted the same level of freedom of dress at work that they enjoyed on the street, the shock arcade, or the opera. That Victorian age, when one couldn't see a topless woman without watching a video or going to a club wasn't even a memory for him. He had to be told about it, usually by his parents, or any of the older people he was forced to interacted with in his day. They loved talking about how things used to be. True enough, he did it himself. At thirty-one, Sart was a real codger, especially compared to Asper. He almost looked back at her but made an effort to keep his eyes forward.

Just ahead of Sart, a body ran headlong into a store window. Their skull bounced off the transparent aluminum sending a loud Bwoo-oo-oo-ng resonating through this section of the Mall. Sart could walk home most of the way through the Mall. It wasn't the safest place, especially at night, but it was safer than the street. Usually. Unfortunately, putting up with this sort of thing was part of the deal at any hour. The poor soul's body slapped into the floor and the attackers pounced on them ripping a flower-print backpack out of their hands and kicking them several times in the ribs and back. Sart froze in place and looked around for cover. He ducked behind a locked down implant kiosk. He looked around for Asper and Gild, but they must have wandered off in their own directions. He was alone. Neither of them would have been any use anyway. Asper would probably have made things worse. Gild definitely would have, but alone was still bad. More people were on their way to the scene, shouting and slamming around. Sart had to get out of there. The nearest escalator to the surface was too close to the fight and someone would probably see him if he tried to make it back to the one he'd just passed. Sart waited for him moment, and dashed across the hall, flattening himself against the wall behind a pillar. Muffled shouts and dull thuds echoed all around him. He let out a quiet yelp when the wall he was bracing against creaked and gave way. Sart tumbled backwards and landed on his bag. Something inside crunched. He had fallen through a door to the service corridor. He wasn't supposed to be in there, but it was better than being in the middle of whatever the hell was going on out there. He scrambled to his feet and caught the door before it slammed. Easing the door shut, he ducked out of the way of its little window.

The corridor was bare except for little metal boxes that ran along the floor evey ten feet or so- glue traps for rats, or bugs, or whatever else they had back here. One had a little sticker of an atomic monster on it. On any other day, he'd have time to find that funny.

Sart imagined someone spotting him through the door's window, and he realized that he'd be easy prey in that secluded tunnel. The fear drove him deeper into the Employees Only Zone. He was a Mall employee after all. He just wasn't one of the ones that was supposed to be here. If the cleaning staff found him... Sart could only imagine. He was afraid to deal with them on his own terms- out in the mall. In the daylight. Back here, they might just pull him into a mop room or a storage closet, and he'd end up dissolving in a drum of the stuff they used to get chewing gum out of carpets. The service corridor pushed in around him. He felt the pressure in his lungs. He needed to find a way out of there that didn't involve going through the concourse.

Sart turned the first corner he came to and was confronted with at least a mile of hallway in each direction. "Oh fuck this." He whispered to himself and turned back.

He could just wait at the door until things settled down. These things didn't last long. They'd beat the poor slob up or kill them, and the cops would finally arrive to sort things out. As long as nobody saw him, he'd be ok. Even if they did, he'd just say that he left from the service door of his store. He didn't see anything. No prob...

The door's window flashed white and it rattled on it's hinges. A deafening roar shook the Mall knocking Sart off of his feet. Holy Shit an explosion! Sart was back on his feet and running down the hallway as fast as he could. He turned left at the intersection, the way he figured was homeward, and ran as fast and for as long as he could. There were alarms going off and the sprinklers came on- or tried to. Their long-dry tanks managed to cough out a few half-hearted sprays of water- just what was left in the pipes. A few splashes manages to nail Sart as he ran. His heel caught a patch of wet tile, and it shot out from under him. He crashed head-first into a janitor's cart that tumbled over- sending cleaning supplies everywhere in an cascade of bouncing bottles and unspooling toilet paper.

"What are you doing out there?!" a voice hissed at him.

Sart looked around. It had come from a guy standing in a nearby doorway. They looked like a classic gym teacher- buzz-cut, broad shouldered, wearing a tight, short-sleeved button-up and short-shorts. Sart froze.

"Well, don't just sit there like an idiot." The guy dragged a plastic crate into the doorway to prop it open and stepped out into the hall. "We have to get that up before they come back."

The guy righted the cart and began stacking the bottles and rolls of toilet paper back onto it. "You gonna help?" he snapped at Sart, more desperate than angry.

Sart nodded and helped them. The guy straightened everything out, rolled the cart twenty feet away and came running back to the door. "Now get in!" They barked at Sart as loudly as one could and still be considered whispering.

Sart did as he was told and found himself in a backroom. All backrooms looked more or less look the same in the Mall, and since everything was in it's crate or a box, he couldn't readily figure out where he was.

The big guy confronted him. "Do you know what the hell is going on out there?"

Sart's face fell. This guy seemed like they had their shit together. Sart was hoping that they were going to know.

"How should I know?" asked Sark, maybe a little to aggressively.

"Well what are you running around back there for? You know the cleaning crew doesn't like it. If they'd come by after you messed up that cart, God only knows what they would have done!" The guy spoke with his fists on his hips, like a gym teacher. Or a security guard. Cops never did that, Sart thought, only people who needed to convince you that they had authority.

"There was someone getting the shit beat out of them and then something blew up. I don't know what the hell's wrong with this place, but aparently people are just blowing up now!"

The guy folded his arms across his chest and looked at Sart like he was just the sorriest thing they'd ever seen. Sart noticed the logo on their shirt. This was that new High-Powered Placebo place. Hi-Pow-Pos were the newest trend to get nation-wide retail chains. Unlike rock collecting, which was on it's way out after an auspicious six months, these cure-all stores were starting to pop up. This was one of three in this end of the Mall, but Sart couldn't tell you which one.

"Can we come out now?" A muffled female voice asked impatiently from... somewhere.

Sart eyed the guy cautiously. They looked confused for a moment then raised Their head and inhaled in a distinctly "oh that" way.

"Oh that?" The guy said out loud. Those are my employees. I rushed them into the bathroom when I heard the explosion in the mall. You really don't know what it was?"

"No..." answered Sart, managing to not add that he had not learned anything new about it in the last ten seconds. "Are you gonna, like, let them out?"

The guy rushed over to the back door and squinted through the peephole. "Looks like the cart's gone now." They turned their key and shoved the door open. "You better be on your way. I'm really only supposed to have my own employees back here."

"Yeah. No problem." Sart answered.

The heavy steel door banged shut behind him. There was some muffled talk behind it, but Sart didn't stick around to eavesdrop. The cleaning cart was indeed gone, which meant he was free to proceed. Jogging along the service corridor for what seemed like two or three blocks, he hit a turn that he hoped would lead back to the concourse. After another turn he saw a door that looked like the one he'd come in. It had the same small square window, criss-crossed with reinforcing wire. Best of all this one didn't seem to have any explosions or riots going on behind it- so far.

Sart approached it slowly and peaked through the little window. It looked like the sprinklers worked better in this part of the Mall. The floor was slick and shiny and lazy drizzles of water were still running out of the ceiling. The place looked deserted, no rioters or janitors- definitely no police. Still Sart was nervous about reentering the open space that he had fled. Somewhere in the back of his mind was a small proto-hominid hiding at the edge of the thick brush- afraid to leave cover and venture out across the open plains. The sound of heavy machinery rolling toward him from the corridor reminded Sart of where he was and gave him the last bit of courage he needed to sneak back into the open Mall. Aside from almost slipping on the wet floor and having to evade the river of filth that the sprinklers had washed from the body of a bundled, hopefully sleeping person, he made it home without further incident.

Maybe there would be some sense to be made of all of this in the morning, Sart thought- but he doubted it.


	2. Poop Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sart tries to get through his day working in THE MALL, a futuristic retail hell-scape. The customers are deranged, his boss is a creep, and the threat of human shit being thrown at him is very real.

“It was The Lord Alpha who gave Jay-Zoo of Nazareen the power and the will to hold the moon and stars in his hands, but if not for the true ones of The Alpha he would have given them to he devil A-zoth. A-Zoth is the Eater of Souls and he lives in the president's First Man, the corpulent traitor Stone Man. I saw the serpent emerge from his eye-mouth on the feed. The Fat Traitor opened his mouth of words and spoke with the mouth of his eyes. I saw the snake wrapped around the world on his face. Only the light of the Alpha will burn it away. We need a true war! The War will burn the unclean ones. I saw The Alpha. He was in my house. He was in my...” The disheveled man reared up to his full height (at least six foot four, guessed Sart) and looked around. He hunched back over the counter and looked Sart in his eyes with a desperate sincerity. “He wants me to serve him. He wants me to start his War. I'm his MAN.”

Sart took a long breath and pursed his lips into a tight sincere line. “That's heavy.” He said.

“Yeah you better believe that's heavy.” Answered the Man as he smoothed the front of his yellow wool army coat. “That's the heaviest shit there is.”

“You should probably be careful who you tell all that to.” Said Sart in his best conspiratorial tone. “You can never really know who's listening.”

The Man nodded his head. Sart was really hoping that this would get him to shut up. Listening to this guy's stream of consciousness personal End Times mythology was fun and all, but he was approaching his limit.

“That's why this place is the best place.” said the Man. “They can't come in this place.”

“Why's that, do you figure?” Asked Sart.

The tall guy tapped a twenty pound chunk of rose quartz that was displayed on the counter. Sart really hated that this big sample wasn't in a case. Everyone wanted to touch it, and he was the one who always had to clean the dirty fingerprints and drool off of it. He once found a handful of little jelly candies squished right into it.

“The ruby quartz?” Sart asked wearily.

“Alla these. These crystals.” The Man spread his long arms. “They kill them. They kill the snakes and demons. Imma come back and buy'em all.” The Man was ducking his head down low again to show that he meant business.

Sart nodded. “Yeah well. We'll be here.” He turned around as if he was suddenly remembering something important. “Oh! Hey look. I have some important stuff I have to do. With the crystals. Over here. I don't want to keep you.”

“Yeah. Yeah!” Said the Man. “I gotta go get some stuff done. I gotta million dollar job I gotta do. It's not something I'd usually bother with, but imma gonna give it to the hospital. The kids!”

Sart nodded and stopped bothering to look busy as soon the guy was out the door.

As if by pure chance, Zel arrived at the front counter once the crazy guy was out the door. “Having fun?” he asked.

“How is it that you always miss the Lord Alpha Guy?”

“We're just on different schedules.” Said Zel, not quite hiding his smile.

Sart started to survey the big quarts for homeless dirt when he remembered what he wanted to ask Zel.

“Yesterday Asper said something about you hearing that the store might be closing. You know anything about that?”

“Asper? I wouldn't talk to an associate about corporate matters.” Zel snapped irritably. “She's just dreaming she can go back on unemployment. That's all she wants.”

Sart had anticipated this reaction. In spite of having personally hired Asper, he displayed the most virulent contempt for her- at least when she wasn't around. In her presence, he doted on her and often reassigned duties that he had given her to Sart of one of the other workers. Sart also took note that Zel tended to tug at the front of his pants when he talked about her. _Yeah, that doesn't mean a thing_ , Sart thought as he tightened his throat against throwing up.

“So do you know anything about some sort of explosion in the concourse last night?” said Sart, changing the subject.

“Explosion?” Is that why everything's still sealed off down there?”

“Yeah, I guess so. I barely made it out without getting blown up last night. Something went off. Seemed pretty powerful. I closed with Asper and Gild, but they surfaced before it all happened.” Said Sart as he spritzed the big pink quartz sample with glass cleaner.

“Too bad Asper wasn't there. She could have distracted them all with her...” Zel looked around and noticed that there were, in fact, customers in the store who could hear him. “She could have distracted them and broken it up. Maybe gone home with one or two of them.”

There was a forced quality to Zel's misogyny that made Sart uncomfortable. He wondered if he would have been better equipped to deal with someone who seemed to genuinely hate fems on an elemental level rather than having to deal with a grown man transparently overcompensating in an attempt to conceal an infantile crush on one of his employees. Sart thanked providence that he had a light breakfast that day.

“She has a partner you know.” said Zel. “Maybe a couple of 'em, I'm not sure. She's very popular.”

Sart turned away from Zel to conceal his wearied disgust. He could feel Zel's eyes on the back of his neck..

“When's the last time you got a member card, huh?” snapped Zel. “You still don't have any this week.”

“I just had someone who was very interested in joining!” lied Sart.

“Who? The Alpher Guy?”

Sart's eyes rolled over to the door and back to Zel. In truth, that was who he was thinking about, but that probably wasn't the answer Zel was looking for. “A lady. Yesterday. She was all over the big rock. She's totally going to join when she gets her first of the month allotment.”

“Yeah. Well, I can't put what people are gonna do on the report. Make your numbers this week or I'm cutting your hours again.” Zel tugged at his crotch again and went back to whatever he had been pretending to doing the back room.

Alone again, Sart slumped down onto the front counter and watched the mass of bodies roll slowly move past out in the Mall. He saw a handful of cute hard-fems bunched closely together. Arms linked, their masses of multi-colored hair looked like one gigantic clown wig on legs. The group cast cautiously amused looks at him before exploding with laughter and moving on. There was a clean-shaven dude leaning against the far side of the hall staring unblinkingly at something above the store's entrance. The dude stared up with an eerie intensity. Their right hand pulling back the rubbery yellow lapel of their suit jacket as their left hand slowly caressed the smooth, white skin of their chest. A figure passed between them and drew Sart's attention. They had long dirty gray hair pulled back into a loose ponytail and a ratty beard framing a serious mouth. In their hands was clenched the handles of a rolling container of some sort. The wild person was wearing a work shirt that looked just like the ones that employees of the Geode-Drome uesed to wear only with a weird-looking patch where their logo would have been. They slowed down and looked right at Sart, flashing him a big toothy smile. Without meaning to, Sart returned a nervous smile and added a friendly wave.

“Ex-cuse me!”

Sart bolted upright nearly knocking over the cup of pens near the register. The call had come from a very small person at the counter that Sart hadn't noticed. “Ah, Yes zir.”

“I have to use the bathroom! Lemmie in your bathroom!”

“We don't have a restroom in the store, zir. There's one down the hall next to the Donut Gulp. You can go there.”

The little person squinted up at Sart and wound their mouth into a tight knot before hissing, “You could let me use it! I'm going to shit right on your floor, motherfucker!”

This person was wearing shorts, a shirt with a picture of a clown in it, and an honest-to-god propeller beanie. The strange outfit stood in contrast with their dark five-o'clock shadow and what looked like an old-style cigarette behind their ear. Sart almost had to cover his mouth to keep from laughing out loud at this unlikely scene.

“You think I'm kiddin' motherfucker?!” The little guy's face was now bright red. Their hands were balled up into fists. “You think you're more man than me? Come out from behind that counter, faphole!”

“Ok, citizen. I think it's time for you to go.” Said Sart . He'd had enough.

The angry little guy shoved a finger as close to Sart's nose as they could manage, “You better watch it, skink. You better watch it!”

“Yeah, that's great. You gotta go now.” said Sart as the angry little guy made his way out of the store.

Once the poop-threatener was clear of the front windows, Sart put his head down on the counter and laughed out loud. The insanity of the day had finally gotten the better of him. This was his life- vengeful gods and people threatening to shit on the floor. Straightening up and wiping the tears from his eyes, he was met with the cold stare of a lady at the rack of petrified wood chips. To Sart, they looked like a cartoon grandmother. They were glaring at him and shaking their head.

“I'm sorry, can I help you zir?”

They gently set down the fossil and walked out of the store, turned at the entrance to tell Sart, “I think that was terrible how you treated that poor poor man!”

Sart held his hands up in surrender. He had nothing.

The lady spun back around on a pink kitten heel and stormed out. Sart could have asked himself for the thousandth time what was wrong with this place, but he knew there wasn't any point. He worked in the Mall. That was all there was to it.

The next day, Gild slipped on a massive pile of human shit near the back of the store. Zel called Sart and told him that the store would be closing early to get the place sanitized, and he didn't need to come in. Sart managed to suppress his laughter until he go off of the com with his boss, but not very well. When he hung up, he opened a beer and, slightly impressed, thanked the crazy little pooper for the day off.


End file.
